


There's No Lying About Love

by Bitterlikesweets



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: But with a happy ending, M/M, a bit angsty, mipha briefly mentioned, onesided zelink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27752920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitterlikesweets/pseuds/Bitterlikesweets
Summary: Zelda's eyes are brimming with affection, and Link doesn’t know how to tell her that there is someone else that he needs to go back to. Namely, a Zora prince that he's become particularly fond of.
Relationships: Link/Prince Sidon
Comments: 3
Kudos: 208





	There's No Lying About Love

Link doesn’t know how to tell Zelda that there is someone else that he needs to go back to. 

He doesn’t know how to admit it, when she’s battered and bruised, looking at him with green eyes so full of affection that he can’t hope to match it. He averts his gaze uneasily, fidgeting with a large silver band attached to his belt--a bracelet that just so happens to belong to a certain prince that he would love to teleport back to as soon as possible. 

“Do you remember me?” Zelda asks, and Link bites his tongue because those green eyes narrow as she continues to gaze at him, and they’re gentle and close and  _ unfamiliar.  _

How is he supposed to tell her? How is he supposed to explain things to her when she’s looking at him like nothing’s changed?  _ Everything _ has changed for Link. He’s known her as nothing more than a disembodied voice and few scattered memories that barely feel real for months now. He vaguely recalled a few moments here and there from his past life, but they don’t feel like his memories. He saw himself, but it felt like he was witnessing a different person. That stoic and proper knight did not feel like the current Link, the Link who ran around half naked in the woods, swinging tree branches at anything that so much as looked in his direction. The personal knight of Zelda feels so different from the young man who spends his free time climbing mountains and eating mushrooms he finds off the ground. 

Those one hundred years turned Link into a different man, but Zelda is the same as she ever was, and the guilt rocks him until he’s unsteady on his feet. When he stumbles away from her, she reaches out to help him, and she smiles as if she knows how he’s feeling, but she doesn’t. He clutches Sidon’s bracelet, hanging low by his waist, and it calms him until he sees Zelda’s eyes follow the movement of his hands. 

“Ah,” she says softly. Her gaze lowers, and he suddenly realizes that she is shaking, her eyes barely able to stay open, and his own selfishness pools heavily in his stomach. He feels sick. He’s been thinking nothing but himself, and Zelda is barely hanging on. How has he not thought to let her rest now that the battle is over? 

He supposes part of him has thought of her as similar to the goddess whose power she wields, after knowing her as nothing more than that voice, as a far off entity that had been doing the impossible for a century. It’s strange to see her and think of her as a person, a person who is likely exhausted and clearly staring at Link like a maiden in love, even in her tired state. 

“My sheikah slate,” she mumbles, her eyelids fluttering. “Perhaps we can…”

She falls forward, and Link is barely quick enough to catch her, and that’s when he realizes that she was never gazing at Sidon’s bracelet in the first place. He shifts to pull her up onto his back, and she feels impossibly light. He wonders when she’s last eaten as he absentmindedly sets his destination on the sheikah slate, and it’s only as the blue light swirls around him that he realizes that in his panic, he’s sent them straight to Zora’s domain. 

When her arms flop limply over her shoulders, and he moves her higher on his back so that her bare feet don’t dip in the water surrounding the shrine in the Domain, Link realizes that he’s tired too. His muscles ache and his clothes are torn, and he wants nothing more than to feel Sidon’s cool fingers on his cheeks, the remedy that has healed his mind as many times as Mipha’s powers healed his body. Perhaps that was why he traveled there instead of his home in Hateno; a part of him was searching for the remedy he always used after a tough battle. 

But he can’t help but think it was awful timing for him to fall back on his habits. As much as he loves Sidon’s touch, Sidon’s smile, the Zora prince’s presence will do nothing to lessen the guilt currently gnawing at Link’s insides. 

As Link slowly makes his way up the steps, the princess on his back, he spies Sidon standing in front of Mipha’s statue in the courtyard, and Link can’t help but silently curse his awful luck. Sidon sees Link immediately, yellow eyes growing wide and then even wider upon noticing who Link carries on his back. Link is sure that Sidon was probably too young when they knew each other to truly recognize her, but Sidon was the one who saw Link off when he marched off to fight Calamity Ganon. Sidon knew enough about the situation to guess. 

Or maybe Sidon did recognize her. Maybe a sense of familiarity washed over the prince, from seeing this woman from his childhood again. Maybe Sidon remembered her more than Link did, even with what little memories Link had left still vivid in his mind. 

The thought makes the heavy feeling in Link’s stomach burn. 

When he sees Link sway, Sidon rushes over, hands outstretched to help Link, as always, but Link pulls back just before they can touch, not sure if he could handle both Sidon and Zelda at once, even with the princess unconscious. Sidon steps back, yellow eyes staring inquisitively down at Link, but Link averts his gaze, instead focusing his gaze on the floor. 

“Are you alright, love?” 

Link flinches at the name but nods, and with his gaze still stubbornly glued to floor, he misses Sidon’s frown. When the prince speaks again, his voice is softer, more hesitant. 

“Is the princess alright?”

Link nods again, shifting her slightly higher on his back.

"I can arrange a bed for her. I'm sure you're tired too."

Link nods again, and when a few of the Zora come to take her away, she clings to Link, small hands balled up in the blue fabric of his dirty Hylian tunic. Link frowns slightly, leaning his head back to look at her, nudging her head with his in the process. She’s still knocked out, but she nuzzles into his touch and Link stiffens, the now familiar feeling of guilt only worsening when he turns and sees Sidon frowning down at him, his hands clasped behind his back. 

It’s moments like these when he wishes words came easily to him, but as always, they don’t. So he hangs his head and pries Zelda’s hands off, refusing to watch as the Zora gently whisk her away into the night. 

The lack of her physical weight does nothing to lighten Link’s terrible mood and increasing fatigue. He thinks about going to her, waking her up, just to get the likely devastating conversation over with. He thinks of her, waking alone some time tomorrow, wondering why the knight she seems to love so much is not by her side. He thinks of having to tell her that he can’t be by her side, not like she wants him too. 

And the heavy liquid guilt in his stomach sways and rocks him because he thinks of how everyone she ever knew and loved is now gone—except for Link, but in a way, he’s gone too. 

Link wants to vomit. He physically sways, and Sidon’s large hands come to hold him up by the elbows and Link’s head spins because  _ Hylia _ , he loves Sidon, and he loves the prince’s smile and the way those hands always treat him like a treasure, like something precious, but at the moment, even that gentle affection feels like it’s too much. Because he’s something precious to too many people, and he looks up to push Sidon back and his eyes lock on Mipha’s statue—

A garbled noise crawls out of his throat—a whimper combined with a shout of distress, a noise that a wounded animal might make. And Sidon smiles down at him. His red hands slide from Link’s elbows to his shoulders. He squeezes, and Link sags beneath the tension. 

“You worry too much, beloved,” Sidon says, and his voice is soft, only for Link to hear. 

Link’s eyebrows pull sharply downwards as he frowns because clearly he hasn’t worried enough--if he’d thought more about it, he would’ve been more prepared for this. He would have had a speech or a letter ready or  _ something _ . He would’ve noticed the signs from those brief memories and not been so caught off guard by the look in Zelda’s eyes while they were both at the edge of their sanity, the last of Calamity Ganon’s energy still fading in the air behind them. 

“I worried similarly to you,” Sidon said, “at first. After all, my sister was as fond of you as I am.” 

Link shrinks beneath Sidon’s gaze, a frown pulling at his lips. Link thought about it back then too. When he met her spirit in the Divine Beasts, his cheek warmed and he spluttered like a fish out of water because Mipha gauged his feelings for Sidon with little more than a glance. It was easier with Mipha, because she knew without him saying. 

And because she could not hope for a future between the two of them, but Link often tries not to think of it that way. 

“I wondered,” Sidon continued, gently guiding Link to stand in front of Mipha’s statue, “if she would ever forgive me for such a thing. She loved you deeply, and I…”

Sidon’s hands tighten on Link’s shoulders. 

“I wasn’t sure what I owed to her, and if that outweighed what I wanted for myself. I’m sure it is harder on you, knowing that you are all the princess has.”

Link’s hands clench into fists at his sides. 

“Link,” Sidon says, and his voice is a whisper again, “I love you. And if, someday far in the future, you found someone you loved much more than me, someone who made you happy, I would understand. I would let you go.”

Sidon spins Link around so that they are facing each other, and Link has no idea when Sidon began to kneel, but they are suddenly eye to eye. Sidon slowly reaches for him, cradling Link’s face in his hands. 

“And if the princess truly loves you—and if I make you happy—then she, too, will understand.”

Link is still uneasy, but the painful, heavy guilt in his gut abates a bit. He relaxes just enough to lean into Sidon’s touch, to weakly smile back when Sidon flashes him a sharp-toothed grin. He places his hand’s over Sidon’s as the prince continues to cradle his face, humming slightly in appreciation, and Sidon’s grin grows even brighter. When the nervousness and panic begins to slowly fade, Link realizes just how tired he is. He feels the ache in all his muscles from the long fight, from staying up multiple nights throughout that grueling battle. He sags forward and Sidon catches him with a laugh. 

“I think that’s enough being Hero of Hyrule for a little while,” Sidon says. “Time to take a break. Be Link for a few days.”

Link wearily shakes his head with a grumble, even as he burrows into the prince’s arms. He thinks of all the things he should do—people he should inform of Calamity Ganon’s demise. He wants to sweep the areas most prone to monsters, and there’s no telling what he will have to do with Zelda to help her rebuild the kingdom. 

“The world can wait a few days,” Sidon says firmly. “It waited a hundred years with a great beast fighting for its destruction; it will survive for at least a few days more.” 

Link grumbles dissent again, even as Sidon slowly but surely pulls him to the bedroom to rest. 

“Alright then. Sir Hero, think of the lover you’ve been neglecting. Surely, spending time with me is part of your many duties?”

Link’s next grunt sounds like a reluctant form of agreement and Sidon grins brightly, sweeping Link off of his feet and cradling the little Hylian close to his chest. Link manages a playful punch to Sidon’s chest before his eyes lip shut, sleep turning his mind into a dizzy haze. 

Just before he drifts off, he hears Sidon speak up, but he’s too out of it to truly take in the words. 

“Princess Zelda! How long have you been awake?”

“Oh, well… Just long enough, I suppose.”

Link hears a sniffle. Then Sidon’s voice, full of sympathy.

“Your highness…”

“Just… Take care of him, will you?”

“...Of course. You have my word.”

The real world is lost to Link after that, but he dreams a wonderfully pleasant dream. He stands beside Sidon, their hands linked together. And they look up at the sky together. The goddess Hylia looks down upon them, but her face is strangely familiar. Bright green eyes regard the couple fondly, and when she smiles down at Link, he grins brightly up at her in return. 


End file.
